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The FoundryChairman Mullen: China Military Buildup “Very Much Focused” on United States
Posted May 6th, ...

The FoundryChairman Mullen: China Military Buildup “Very Much Focused” on United States
Posted May 6th, 2009 at 10.34am in Protect America.
While China continues to insist its military expansion is purely defensive in nature, yesterday the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs expressed his doubts: “They are developing capabilities that are very maritime focused, maritime and air focused, and in many ways, very much focused on us.”

Even though China’s long-term intentions are still very much unknown, the Chairman’s clarity on China’s military capabilities is an encouraging development.
The Pentagon’s 2009 report on China’s military capabilities reflected Mullen’s concerns. Secretary Gates has also discussed the near-term challenge China poses due to the PLA’s ability to “deny the U.S. military freedom of movement and action while potentially threatening our primary means of projecting power: our bases, sea and air assets, and the networks that support them.” But the Secretary has also argued that the nation must be willing to accept greater strategic risk as it shifts its focus towards “the wars we are most likely to fight.” To do this, he has proposed canceling the F-22 and C-17, delaying a next-generation long-range bomber and Navy cruiser, and reducing the budget for missile defense.

If Secretary Gates’ strategic vision is implemented, it will help to generate the casual erosion of U.S. primacy. This development will have lasting international consequences. As Australia clearly articulated this week in their new defense White Paper, “the wider Asia-Pacific region has enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace and stability underwritten by US strategic primacy.” The retreat of American power will bring “escalating strategic competition” and greater risks and instability throughout the region.

Over the next year the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review process will generate a new document to help implement the strategic posture Secretary Gates’ has favored. To hedge against the prevailing opinions at the Pentagon, the Congress should mandate a National Defense Panel to conduct its own independent assessment.
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China military build-up a threat to India, Japan, Russia and USA: Pentagon

Dated 20/7/2005
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The US Government says that the Chinese military build-up poses a direct threat to India. According to the assessment by the Pentagon appearing in Wednesday's Washington Post, the Chinese military build-up is not only targeted at India, but also at Taiwan, Japan and Russia.

Avoiding inflammatory rhetoric, the 45-page factual report based on American intelligence inputs, warns that Beijing could use its new advanced nuclear missile arsenal to "strike India, Russia and virtually all of the United States" at any given time in the future.

It further warns that China's defence spending could go up to 90 billion dollars in 2005, three times more than what it has officially projected, making it the world's third largest military budget after the US and Russia, and the largest in Asia.

According to Evan Medeiros, an expert on Chinese military affairs at the Rand Corporation, the Chinese military build-up also represents a growing threat to the United States, though the Pentagon report says that Beijing's emergence as a "conventional military power remains limited".

China has been busy "qualitatively and quantitatively" improving its nuclear missile force, which is capable of "targeting most of the world," the Pentagon report says. Elaborating further, it says that in 2004, Beijing positioned more CSS-6 and CSS-7 short-range ballistic missiles on its coast facing Taiwan, raising it from 500 to between 650 and 730. China, the report says, can fly over 700 aircraft to Taiwan without refuelling.

General Wen Zongren, the Political Commissar of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Academy of Military Science, however, is quoted in the report as saying that Beijing's focus on Taiwan could prove an obstacle to it showcasing its military prowess elsewhere.

General Zongren suggests that China's obsession with Taiwan has allowed for the creation of an international armed blockade against Chinese maritime security.

"Only when we break this blockade, shall we be able to talk about China's rise. To rise suddenly, China must pass through oceans and go out of oceans in its future development," the Pentagon report quotes General Zongren, as saying.

The Obama administration came into office looking to “deepen the dialogue” with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). On her visit to Beijing in late February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “it is essential that the United States and China have a positive, cooperative relationship. Both of us are seeking ways to deepen and broaden that relationship.” In reality, she narrowed the discussion by pushing to the margin areas of disagreement. She downplayed human rights abuses in China and glossed over U.S.-PRC rivalries in hot spots like North Korea and Iran. Her main concern was to reassure Beijing that its large investments in U.S. government securities were safe and to urge that capital keep flowing from the Chinese trade surplus to American budget deficits.

Testing just how much of a supplicant Clinton had been, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fleet harassed a U.S. Navy research vessel in the South China Sea almost exactly a month later. This incident was similar to that of April 1, 2001, during which a Chinese fighter collided with a Navy EP-3 intelligence-gathering aircraft, forcing the American crew to crash land on Hainan island where the aircraft was dismantled and tits personnel held hostage against a U.S. apology. The Navy ship in the recent incident was also sailing in the vicinity of Hainan monitoring a new underground PLA naval base.

In both cases, Beijing claimed rights within its Exclusive Economic Zone which are in conflict with the traditional unrestricted use of international waters. The EEZ was awarded under the Law of the Sea Treaty (which the United States has not ratified) and extends 200 miles out from the Chinese coast. The EEZ applies only to the exploitation of resources. It is not meant to be an extension of sovereignty over the ocean itself, though Beijing is pushing for such an expanded interpretation.

The Navy ship was 75 miles from Hainan, well outside the 12 mile legal reach of territorial waters. The U.S. Navy regularly operates in this area, so the timing of the incident, like the one eight years ago, must be seen as another test of a new American president. President Barack Obama shrugged it off to avoid a confrontation. In contrast, Admiral Timothy Keating, who heads the U.S. Pacific Command, said, “China, particularly in the South China Sea, is behaving in an aggressive, troublesome manner, and they're not willing to abide by acceptable standards of behavior or rules of the road.”

The growth of China’s navy was a source of concern in the annual report on Chinese Military Power released by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates March 25. The report portrays a China rapidly acquiring advanced weapons in an effort to dominant Asia, Though Taiwan remains a focus of Beijing’s military effort, the 2009 report, like its predecessors, warns that China wants to project its power beyond Taiwan. Beijing’s “dependence on secure access to markets and natural resources, particularly metals and fossil fuels, has become an increasingly significant factor shaping China’s strategic behavior,” says the report............................................ ..MORE HERE............ Obama: Ignoring China's Military Buildup

__________________Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
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Logic is dead. Excellence is punished.

Mediocrity is rewarded. And dependency is to be revered. This is present day America.

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's failure to be transparent about its rapidly growing military capabilities has created uncertainty and risks of miscalculation, the Pentagon said in an annual report released on Wednesday.

The report, the first under the Obama administration, came weeks after Chinese boats jostled with a U.S. Navy surveillance ship in the South China Sea in a confrontation that heightened tensions over Chinese military activities near its coasts.

"Much uncertainty surrounds China's future course, particularly regarding how its expanding military power might be used," according to the report on Chinese military power, which was submitted to the U.S. Congress.

China was making advances in denying outsiders access to offshore areas and was improving its nuclear, space, and cyber warfare while making its military modestly more transparent, it said, noting potentially global implications to this trend.

China's People's Liberation Army has "left unclear to the international community the purposes and objectives of the PLA's evolving doctrine and capabilities," the report added.

Risks to the United States and its allies in the Pacific region arise from incomplete Chinese defense spending figures and actions that appear inconsistent with declared policies, said the report, the first under the Obama administration.

"The limited transparency in China's military and security affairs poses risks to stability by creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation," the report said.

The emerging Asian superpower could allay concerns and boost transparency through military-to-military discussions with the United States and by publishing better defense papers and other documents, a senior U.S. defense official said.

Beijing usually criticizes the Pentagon report, saying it unfairly portrays China as a military threat when it is committed to a "peaceful rise" as its economic power grows.

CYBER ATTACKS A CONCERN

The report noted that the recent naval showdown between the two sides took place near Hainan island, where the construction of a navy base gives the Chinese navy access to international sea lanes and allows stealthy deployment of submarines into the South China Sea.

"The base appears large enough to accommodate a mix of attack and ballistic missile submarines and advanced surface combatant ships," it said.

The Pentagon analysis said China is developing weapons that would disable its enemies' space technology such as satellites, and boosting its electromagnetic warfare and cyber-warfare capabilities.

China continued to modernize its nuclear arsenal, improving its fleet of ballistic missile submarines to give itself greater strategic strike capability, said the report. China's aircraft carrier research program supported its navy's intention to build multiple carriers by 2020, it added.

Not paranoid mikeyy, just looking at the reality of the situation in China and their move to build up their military. It kinda reminds me of what the U.S. did with the old soviet union. Maybe they are trying the same thing with us.

Not paranoid mikeyy, just looking at the reality of the situation in China and their move to build up their military. It kinda reminds me of what the U.S. did with the old soviet union. Maybe they are trying the same thing with us.

Thanks mlurp for the articles.

Look, Let me ask you something seriously. What is it that China is doing that is odd or unexpected? If you ran China wouldn't you be doing the same thing? Does that mean that they have agresive tendencies> I haven't seen them do anything that we haven't done. Are we out to get China or defend ourselves? We have a huge military. We patrol all around China all the time.

It is paranoia and everyone knows it. End of the day we have more then enough nukes to melt China. And the same the other way. We are already safely tucked into MAD.